NME described Omar Souleyman as "Syrian-folk techno banger", and you can check out this music fusion this December 5th at the Cedar Cultural Center. Think of it as Middle East meets Western .â€¦

Omar Souleyman is without a doubt, the best Syrian techno-folk Electro-shaabi artist weâ€™ve ever seenâ€”

â€¦okay, okay, heâ€™s also the only artist of that ilk weâ€™ve ever seen as well, but his recent performance at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis was still entertaining enough to warrant the accolade.

Souleyman, who sings in Arabic and Kurdish, has gathered quite a recent U.S. following of late, after getting on the bill of high profile alternative music festivals, remixing Bjork, and receiving praise from the likes of NME, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone, who deemed his sound as â€œhot and freshâ€ â€œ EDM-grade belly dancing musicâ€.

From Northeastern Syria, Souleyman began his singing career in 1994, mostly singing at weddings and claims over 500 studio and live albums under his name, most of which are the singerâ€™s recordings presented to the married couple, which are then copied and sold at local kiosks and bazaars â€“ the Middle Eastern Mix Tape network of sorts.

DJ Don Cuco

East met West as well, with DJ Don Cuco spinning techno world beat before, between, and after the live sets as well as with local opener Vacation Dad, who knob-twirled his version of psych/cosmic/afrobeat/trop-funk, spinning some selections from 2012â€™s LIVIN (MJ MJ Records).

Shaabi and dabke are types of traditional music heard at social gatherings in the Middle East and Souleyman takes those traditional folk songs and supercharges them with stomping synth bass and hookah-smokinâ€™ Electro-rhythms, compliments of keyboardist/composer Rizan Saâ€™id, who is the â€œLewisâ€ to his â€œMacklemoreâ€.

His breakthrough album, Wenu Wenu (Ribbon Music) wisely was produced by Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) who knows a thing or two about dance music himself. Souleymanâ€™s all-too-brief 45 min. set started slowly, with an over bundled up Saâ€™id (I suppose if I was from the desert, Iâ€™d be colder in this climate too) playing slow Arabic rhythms from his layers of keyboards while Souleyman vocalized from backstage out of view and as textured color images flashed on the screened backdrop.

Omar Souleyman

Saâ€™id was the secret weapon of the act, standing almost still and looking near-emotionless throughout (similar to Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys), but so responsible for the overall sound that had a younger multi-national audience at the Cedar dancing for most of the set.

Souleyman dressed in a dark robe, head scarf, and dark sunglasses, stalked the stage from left to right like any Western rapper, and goaded the audience into clapping along, when he wasnâ€™t himself singing. Songs like â€˜Leh Janiâ€™, â€˜Yagbuniâ€™, and international hit â€˜Khattabaâ€™ had everyone on the floor thinking they were Middle Eastern for a night, much like everyone being is â€˜Irishâ€™ and celebrating on St. Patrickâ€™s Day.

Similar to the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who brought his traditional Qawwali music to the western masses with great success, Souleyman seems poised to do similar with his modern shaabi/dabke. After thanking the crowd in at least four languages and waving and saying â€œbye byeâ€, Souleyman and Saâ€™id were gone-- leaving the building almost immediately, like a haboob wind, to storm their next tour stop. East had met West.

In W♥M article Minneapolis/St. Paul - Gone Country (?!?!) we examined country music is more popular than pop music. Here are some evidence, Garth Brooks sold out his 11+ show residency at the Target Center and the semi-recent Eric Church show was the second highest beverage-per-person sales for that venue. It is unbelievable how popular Country Music is in Minneapolis... so not surprising when you hear that the "Best New Country Badass" Sturgill Simpson sold out his show in Minneapolis.

Sturgill Simpson's latest Metamodern Sounds in Country Music came out earlier this May 2014 on High Top Mountain, Loose Music.

NME described Omar Souleyman as "Syrian-folk techno banger", and you can check out this music fusion this December 5th at the Cedar Cultural Center. Think of it as Middle East meets Western electronic dance music, and you get the idea behind his latest album Wenu Wenu (Ribbon Music).

This is a rare opportunity to see Souleyman at such a small, intimate setting. Looking over some of his gigography, he traditionally does not do club shows, instead focusing on (large) music festivals like Glastonbury, ATP, Way Out West, NXNE, Bonnaroo, Pitchfork, and the upcoming Sydney Festival (which we mentioned in W♥M224).

Opening up the show was Tristen Gaspadarek, otherwise known simply as Tristen. I believe this was her second appearance in Minneapolis, according to her banter on stage. She's originally from Chicago, but currently "Nashville is where
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Local pop/folk singer Mason Jennings has a two-night residency at First Avenue this December 5 and 6th.
The thing about him is that he has a very distinctive voice... and he will definitely be playing some tracks off his 2011 album Minnesota and current 2013 Always Been.

Nashville by-way-of Chicago, Tristen will open both First Avenue shows. We previous caught her live show last year and noted that her show was mostly taken from her then-upcoming album Caves.